THE WORLD THAT GENERAL GRIFFITH WAS BORN INTO
Sometimes I sit and wonder what the Romans during Augustus Caesar’s time thought.
Rome, of course, went through a hell of a mess. Constant strife and civil wars, the nature of military service, work, and life being reordered. Internal and external war, conflict, change.
And then — just like that — it was over. Julius Caesar was dictator for life.
And then — just like that — it wasn’t over.
Caesar lays bleeding on the Senate Floor and sees Brutus among the conspirators.
“You too, my child? Then die, Caesar.”
More civil war. Bloodbaths. Proscriptions.
And then — just like that — Augustus was in power.
A strange era that would have rippling effects for the next 15 centuries, at least — we can perhaps understand it looking backwards, but what was it to live through such times?
110 years ago, a baby boy was born in Pennsylvania — who would live through a similar tidal wave of changes across the known world.
To understand this world, our world, could we try to understand it as he understood it unfolding?
When he was born in 1906 in Lewistown PA, Samuel B. Griffith was, of course, not yet a Brigadier General in the Marine Corps, a veteran of multiple campaigns; he had not served as the Executive Officer or commander of the 1st Marine Raiders Battalion, modeled off the British commandos that had done so much damage to Adolf Hitler; he had not received the Navy Cross in ’42 for “extreme heroism and courageous devotion to duty”; neither had he received the Purple Heart for the serious wounds he sustained fighting the Empire of Japan in Guadalcanal; he had not received Distinguished Service Cross for fighting in New Georgia; he had not instructed at the Naval War College post-WWII; and he most certainly hadn’t gotten his doctorate from Oxford University in Chinese Military History yet.
No, of course not; in 1906, Brigadier General Griffith was not yet a soldier, commander, or scholar; he was a baby, born just 6 years into a new century being held in Mama Griffith’s arms.
Theodore Roosevelt was still President of the United States in 1906 when young Samuel became the newest member of the Griffith family. That same year, Teddy Roosevelt would become the first statesman to win the Nobel Peace Prize — for brokering peace between Russia and Japan in the Russo-Japanese War.
“The Great War” — World War I — had not happened yet. The Russian Empire under the House of Romanov was 185 years old at that point, and the Japanese Empire was young at 38 years old and still under its first very first Emperor, Meiji.
The Great War would start 8 years later; some of his first adolescent memories likely would be of the American Expeditionary Force mobilizing under General Pershing in 1917 — when Samuel was a mere 11 years old.
The Romanov dynasty fell that same year, and then liquidated shortly after, bringing Vladimir Lenin to command of the Rus.
Oft-forgotten now, the young Empire of Japan entered on the side of the Allies, savaging and expanding at the expense of Imperial Germany’s colonies and bases in the Pacific.
Later, the youngster would be Brigadier General Griffith — now he was still a pre-teen — his was to be an eventful life.
***
21 YEARS AND A MERE 200 MILES AWAY
What is it about Pennsylvania?
In January of 1927, as the future General Griffith would have been studying at university, another baby was born in Pennsylvania who would greatly shape the course of American military thinking.
A mere 200 miles from Griffith’s birthplace of Lewistown, the future Air Force Colonel John Richard Boyd is born in in Erie, Pennsylvania.
As young Boyd enters the world in ’27, “Silent Cal” Coolidge is President.
He became commander-in-chief when his predecessor, Warren G. Harding, died in office after being elected on the promise of a “Return to Normalcy.” As Harding put it in 1920 —
“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; but submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.”
When Harding died in office, Coolidge became President and kept the same style of governance, winning re-election in 1924.
In 1929, little John Boyd was 2-years-old as Samuel Griffith is uneventfully commissioned into the U.S. Navy, Herbert Hoover becomes the new President, and the decade of the “Roaring Twenties” was set to comes to a close — not with a whimper, but with a bang.
Soon, the old “Normalcy” would be gone forever, though who could have known it then?
On October 29th 1929, the stock market crashes, and the Great Depression begins.
John Boyd — still a toddler — was to have an eventful life.
***
OUR NEXT LESSON ON TOUGHNESS
You’ll recall we’re in the midst of exploring Toughness
.
For this chapter, we’ve introduced two remarkable American thinkers — Marine Corps Major General Samuel B. Griffith, and Air Force Colonel John Boyd.
Both men were devoted servants of their country in troubled times, but the remarkable thing about both of them is their broad and open-minded thinking and learning. There is no partisan rah-rah Americanness here; these men are as macho as it can be, and yet see life and death in this world in its full scale of vivid color.
Both Griffith and Boyd had a deep respect for history, even as it was unfolding in real time, and both engaged in serious military scholarship later. Both were able to largely size-up why America and its allies sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed, and why America’s adversaries sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed.
Each of these thinkers is worth reading; taken together, they paint an incredible picture of when people can endure under stress and pressure, and when they can’t, on scales from the very largest to the very most personal.
We will endeavor to learn from these men.
***
THE TWO ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM
Enter Griffith —
“At one end of the spectrum, ranks of electronic boxes buried deep in the earth hungrily consume data and spew out endless tapes, Scientists and engineers confer in air-conditioned offices; missiles are checked by intense men who move about them silently, almost reverently. In forty minutes, countdown begins.
“At the other end of this spectrum, a tired man wearing a greasy felt hat, a tattered shirt, and soiled shorts is seated, his back against a tree. Barrel pressed between his knees, butt resting on the moist earth between sandaled feet, is a Browning automatic rifle. Hooked to his belt, two dirty canvas sacks—one holding three home-made bombs, the other four magazines loaded with .30-caliber ammunition. Draped around his neck, a sausage-like cloth tube with three days’ supply of rice. The man stands, raises a water bottle to his lips, rinses his mouth, spits out the water. He looks about him carefully, corks the bottle, slaps tile stock of the Browning three times, pauses, slaps it again twice, and disappears silently into the shadows. In forty minutes, his group of fifteen men will occupy a previously prepared ambush.”
— Griffith’s Introduction to his translation of “On Guerrilla Warfare” by Mao, 1961
***
ROOTING INTERESTS?
It is, I contend, impossible to come to any reasonable understanding of history if you take “rooting interests” in every conflict and period.
When Roman Civil War breaks out once again, between Julius Caesar’s adopted son Augustus, and his right-hand man, Mark Anthony, it is hard not to be stirred and pick sides.
It’s hard enough to understand Augustus when you aren’t “rooting for him” or “rooting against him” — if you start by either cheering or booing him, your historical studies will be biased and it will be nearly impossible to get a complete picture. You cripple your mind when you take rooting interests.
Well, that’s easy enough to say about Augustus; Augustus has been dead a long time.
It becomes much harder when looking at figures who still tower over the current day.
Across the lives of Griffith and Boyd, world power shifted from the British Empire being paramount, with France, Germany, and Japan its secondary powers, to a deadlock between the Soviet and NATO blocs, with Red China being one of the most important countries that could tilt the balance of power in one direction or the other.
Beginning lives in a world where indoor plumbing and electricity were still a relative rarity, Griffith and Boyd departed a world with fingers on the triggers of gigantic nuclear arsenals.
Their views of how this world unfolded come to us like a long-lived Roman Republican soldier, living through the times before Caesar’s rise well into Augustus’s reign.
Perhaps the most informative is seeing the scholarship of these men as they looked to understand what happened in China during their lifetimes.
***
SCHOLARSHIP OF CHINESE WAR
The Third Chinese Zen Patriarch, Jianzhi Sengcan, wrote in poetry —
“The Great Way is not difficult
If you do not pick and choose.
Like not, dislike not;
Be illuminated.”
I contend that both Griffith and Boyd were able to have that almost supernatural drive towards clarity and away from bias. They were battle-hardened Americans living through an era being torn apart; they were undoubtedly Americans and shaped by their Americanness; and yet, you see something a love of wisdom and scholarship come through their writings more than any political agenda.
Mao.
What can we say of Mao?
If you don’t at least attempt to understand the Late Qing Dynasty that Mao was born into, I reckon it’s impossible to understand Mao at all. That’s already a problem for our Western readers who aren’t familiar with Chinese history.
The Late Qing, of course, were incredibly corrupt and brutal. They were a small minority group of Chinese, the Manchu, who conquered the much larger Han. While the Early Qing were resourceful, innovative, and technological, the Late Qing can only be characterized by their paranoia, repressiveness, and backwards-looking policies. Constantly terrified of their Han subjects rising up in revolt, and did everything they could to repress science, technology, and military tracts in their late reign.
But even if I could paint an introduction of the Manchu and the Han Mandarins they governed through, it would still be impossible to separate out Mao the guerrilla commander from Mao the later statesman.
Of the latter, much has been said; of the former, not nearly enough. Mao is probably the most accomplished guerrilla commander in all of history — but he is such a towering figure, how can we isolate one period of his life to learn from it, over and apart from the later years?
We cannot; at least, I cannot.
Thankfully, we don’t need to try to get a perfectly clear understanding of Mao as-he-was to learn the lessons of history — if we instead step into the shoes of two Americans who we can largely understand, Griffith and Boyd, we can see how this Marine General and Air Force Colonel came to understand and relate what happened in the oldest civilization on the planet as Mao’s forces came to power — and those lessons are perhaps universal; not just in warfare, but to all of conflict, society, and human life.
***
GRIFFITH ON GUERRILLA WAR
Our reference text is “
Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12-18
”, the 1989 reprinting of Griffith’s translation along with commentary.
It’s not well-known among civilians, but important and valuable to learn that every non-classified work produced by the U.S. Government is freely available — there are treasure troves of historical documents, analyses, and things to learn from. FMFRP 12-18 is one of those documents.
Brigadier General Griffith was a devoted American soldier, but he saw the world far beyond any black and white terms — you can see both a sympathy for people in hard situations, and a genuine respect for those who master the laws of the universe in his work.
From the first part of his commentary —
“In many countries, there are but two classes, the rich and the miserably poor. In these countries, the relatively small middle class – merchants, bankers, doctors, lawyers, engineers — lacks forceful leadership, is fragmented by unceasing factional quarrels, and is politically ineffective. Its program, which usually posits a socialized society and some form of liberal parliamentary democracy, is anathema to the exclusive and tightly knit possessing minority. It is also rejected by the frustrated intellectual youth, who move irrevocably toward violent revolution. To the illiterate and destitute, it represents a package of promises that experience tells them will never be fulfilled.
“People who live at subsistence level want first things to be put first. They are not particularly interested in freedom of religion, freedom of the press, free enterprise as we understand it, or the secret ballot. Their needs are more basic: land, tools, fertilizers, something better than rags for their children, houses to replace their shacks, freedom from police oppression, medical attention, primary schools. Those who have known only poverty have begun to wonder why they should continue to wait passively for improvements. They see–and not always through Red-tinted glasses–examples of peoples who have changed the structure of their societies, and they ask, “What have we to lose?” When a great many people begin to ask themselves this question, a revolutionary guerrilla situation is incipient.”
Griffith continues,
“A revolutionary war is never confined within the bounds of military action. Because its purpose is to destroy an existing society and its institutions and to replace them with a completely new state structure, any revolutionary war is a unity of which the constituent parts, in varying importance, are military, political, economic, social, and psychological. For this reason, it is endowed with a dynamic quality and a dimension in depth that orthodox wars, whatever their scale, lack. This is particularly true of revolutionary guerrilla war, which is not susceptible to the type of superficial military treatment frequently advocated by antediluvian doctrinaires.”
(“Antediluvian” means “really old-fashioned”; I didn’t know the word, either.)
***
THE STRATEGIC GAME OF ‘?’ AND ‘?’
We’ll return to Griffith and Mao in a moment. As you can see from his writing, General Griffith takes a deep look at the causes that give way to revolutionary war, and you can see that he’s completely understanding, even sympathetic, to the people who are ground down under the oppressive conditions where revolutions can so easily take hold.
Both Griffith and later-Colonel John Boyd were hardened in combat; Griffith with his commands during World War II, Boyd flying fighter pilot missions over Korea.
Both of them harnessed their war experiences into a deep curiosity of how conflict originates and how different societies deal with their conflicts.
In his early years, John Boyd was a hot-shot fighter pilot who went on to study calculus and mechanical engineering in order to make his first great contribution to the military, Energy Maneuverability Theory, which still guides aircraft design and flight patterns to this day.
Later, he became interested in the roots of conflict between peoples and the nature of strategy itself.
He did not leave behind many written works; his preferred method of sharing his lessons was by giving briefings to senior military and government officials.
We’re left with copies of his slides from those briefings, and explanations by his students, colleagues, and friends as to what they mean.
One of the most intriguing sets of slides by Boyd are titled,
“The Strategic Game of ? And ?”
You can look at the Slides on your own here —
http://www.ausairpower.net/JRB/strategic_game.pdf
They stand on their own, but they’ll make even more sense if you’ve read a good biography of Boyd, such as Coram’s “
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the World
,” which is excellent and highly recommended.
***
BOYD ON GUERRILLA WAR
Boyd quotes Robert Taber in those slides —
“Almost all modern governments are highly conscious of what journalism calls ‘world opinion.’ For sound reasons, mostly of an economic nature, they cannot afford to be condemned in the United Nations, they do not like to be visited by Human Rights Commissions or Freedom of the Press Committees; their need of foreign investment, foreign loans, foreign markets, satisfactory trade relationships, and so on, requires that they be members in more or less good standing of a larger community of interests. Often, too, they are members of military alliances. Consequently, they must maintain some appearance of stability, in order to assure the other members of the community or of the alliance that contracts will continue to be honored, that treaties will be upheld, that loans will be repaid with interest, that investments will continue to produce profits and be safe.
“Protracted internal war threatens all of this ... no ally wishes to treat with a government that is on the point of eviction.
“It follows, that it must be the business of the guerrilla, and of his clandestine political organization in the cities, to destroy the stable image of the government, and so to deny its credits, to dry up its source of revenue, and to create dissension within the frightened owning classes, within the government bureaucracy (whose payrolls will be pinched), and within the military itself. Isolation, military and political, is the great enemy of guerrilla movements. It is the task of the urban organization to prevent this isolation, to provide diversions and provocations when needed, to maintain contact, to keep the world aware of a revolution in progress even when there is no progress to report.”
***
INTEGRATION AND ISOLATION
We are coming soon to our lessons on Toughness.
Boyd goes on to point out that,
“Living systems are open systems; closed systems are non-living systems. Point: If we don’t communicate with outside world—to gain information for knowledge and understanding as well as matter and energy for sustenance— we die out to become a non-discerning and uninteresting part of that world.”
And comes to the conclusion that,
“Simply stated:
As human beings, we cannot exist without an external or surrounding environment from which we can draw sustenance, nourishment, or support. In other words Interaction permits vitality and growth while Isolation leads to decay and disintegration.
”
***
MAO’S THREE RULES AND EIGHT GUIDELINES
I recall the first time I read Griffith’s translation of “On Guerrilla War” — it seemed so... simple... trivial... basic. Why did people find this insightful?
The translation —
“Rules:
1. All actions are subject to command.
2. Do not steal from the people.
3. Be neither selfish nor unjust.
“Remarks:
1. Replace the door when you leave the house. [hanging doors were used as beds in the summer]
2. Roll up the bedding on which you have slept.
3. Be courteous.
4. Be honest in your transactions.
5. Return what you borrow.
6. Replace what you break.
7. Do not bathe in the presence of women.
8. Do not without authority search the pocketbooks of those you arrest.“
Later, as I studied more, I came to realize that those rules, correctly instituted and followed well, contained an immense amount of wisdom.
***
GRIFFITH ON GUERRILLA WARFARE
“It is often said that guerrilla warfare is primitive. This generalization is dangerously misleading and true only in the technological sense. If one considers the picture as a whole, a paradox is immediately apparent, and the primitive form is understood to be in fact more sophisticated than nuclear war or atomic war or war as it was waged by conventional armies, navies, and air forces. Guerrilla war is not dependent for success on the efficient operation of complex mechanical devices, highly organized logistical systems, or the accuracy of electronic computers. It can be conducted in any terrain, in any climate, in any weather; in swamps, in mountains, in farmed fields. Its basic element is man, and man is more complex than any of his machines. He is endowed with intelligence, emotions, and will. Guerrilla warfare is therefore suffused with, and reflects, man’s admirable qualities as well as his less pleasant ones.”
And then —
“Intelligence is the decisive factor in planning guerrilla operations. Where is the enemy? In what strength? What does he propose to do? What is the state of his equipment, his supply, his morale? Are his leaders intelligent, bold, and imaginative or stupid and impetuous? Are his troops tough, efficient, and well disciplined, or poorly trained and soft? Guerrillas expect the members of their intelligence service to provide the answers to these and dozens more detailed questions. “Guerrilla intelligence nets are tightly organized and pervasive. In a guerrilla area, every person without exception must be considered an agent — old men and women, boys driving ox carts, girls tending goats, farm laborers, storekeepers, schoolteachers, priests, boatmen, scavengers. The local cadres “put the heat” on everyone, without regard to age or sex, to produce all conceivable information. And produce it they do.
“As a corollary, guerrillas deny all information of themselves to their enemy, who is enveloped in an impenetrable fog. Total inability to get information was a constant complaint of the Nationalists during the first four Suppression Campaigns, as it was later of the Japanese in China and of the French in both Indochina and Algeria. This is a characteristic feature of all guerrilla wars, The enemy stands as on a lighted stage; from the darkness around him, thousands of unseen eyes intently study his every move, his every gesture. When he strikes out, he hits the air; his antagonists are insubstantial, as intangible as fleeting shadows in the moonlight.
“Because of superior information, guerrillas always engage under conditions of their own choosing; because of superior knowledge of terrain, they are able to use it to their advantage and the enemy’s discomfiture. Guerrillas fight only when the chances of victory are weighted heavily in their favor; if the tide of battle unexpectedly flows against them, they withdraw. They rely on imaginative leadership, distraction, sunrise, and mobility to create a victorious situation before battle is joined. The enemy is deceived and again deceived. Attacks are sudden, sharp, vicious, and of short duration. Many are harassing in nature; others designed to dislocate the enemy’s plans and to agitate and confuse his commanders. The mind of the enemy and the will of his leaders is a target of far more importance than the bodies of his troops.”
***
LIVING IN AND AMONGST THE PEOPLE
Remarkably, then, we see how “roll up the bedding on which you slept” becomes such a critical thing to do.
Mao blurred the lines between combatant and non-combatant; he didn’t have a black-and-white understanding of who was part of the war effort against the Japanese, or later against the Nationalists.
Griffith tried to put this in context for Americans —
“In the United States, we go to considerable trouble to keep soldiers out of politics, and even more to keep politics out of soldiers. Guerrillas do exactly the opposite. They go to great lengths to make sure that their men are politically educated and thoroughly aware of the issues at stake. A trained and disciplined guerrilla is much more than a patriotic peasant, workman, or student armed with an antiquated fowling-piece and a home-made bomb. His indoctrination begins even before he is taught to shoot accurately, and it is unceasing. The end product is an intensely loyal and politically alert fighting man.”
***
TOUGHNESS, CHAPTER #5: INTEGRATION
History is of course enjoyable on its own, but what are we driving at here?
Writing about the Long March, General Griffith wrote, “The Reds faced many critical situations, but they were tough and determined. Every natural obstacle, and there were many, was overcome.“
Indeed, the endurance of Mao’s soldiers is something to behold; we have seen not too many instances of such immense and world-shaping fortitude since the times of Sparta. Many people can win when things are going well, but how many people can endure for so long under such hardship and deprivation?
This is an ability we want for ourselves and our friends.
***
INTEGRATION AND ISOLATION
Boyd points out that all conflict is a game of integration and isolation — you want to integrate and refine yourself and your allies physically, mentally, and morally. (And if in a direct conflict, you want to isolate your adversaries physically, mentally, morally.)
John Boyd and Samuel Griffith were contemporaries, but it’s not clear to me if they ever met or came across each other’s works. My best guess is — probably.
Nonetheless, reading the two of them together and thinking on it gives some guidelines for militaries and entire societies — the question for us, then, is how do we apply this to our everyday lives?
***
TOUGHNESS VIA INTEGRATION AND ANTI-ISOLATION
In two chapters, we’ll talk about Christians being burned to death and savaged under some Roman Emperors. They often went to their deaths willingly, even joyfully.
Such fortitude! The grace and poise of those martyrs did much to win over the world to Christianity.
And also — such toughness!
In our last chapter, Religio, we discussed how your feelings about your purpose in this universe effect your drive to continue, the standards you set for yourself; indeed, it’s perhaps the primary wellspring of any action beyond mere reflex.
Whereas we all have our personal beliefs of how we relate to this world and what we are to do in our time here, this is then shaped most deeply by what groups we are integrated into. To continue for long and brutal stretches of time, integration is critical and isolation is perhaps fatal.
Let’s explore three ways of greater integration —
1. Society-wide, such as in a Golden age
2. Membership in an individual faction or movement worth backing
3. Integration despite lonely paths to greatness
***
INTEGRATING INTO A WORTHY SOCIETY
It is hard to see past the present day.
As of this writing, in early 2016, we live in a time of deep divides and division. Tensions seem to be rising the world over. We live in interesting times.
It’s hard to recognize that this is not always the case.
For brief flashes of history, entire societies are brought into harmony and enter Golden Ages.
Fleeting — they tend to be fleeting — but how much of the world’s progress comes when entire societies have all their members developing all of their potential and rapidly advancing?
I have no prescriptions for starting a Golden Age across an entire nation; it is a topic I wish I knew some answer to; alas, I do not. I’ll continue scouring history books and doing my work, and see what I can find — yet, I do not even have speculations for you on this score.
But I can say, firmly, across my travels I’ve seen many places where their own rhythms and affairs moved only to their own clockwork, and where a surge of expansion seemed to be happening.
Silicon Valley has of course been such a place for the United States, and may well continue to be; no one that I know who has been in Saigon, Beijing, or Dubai over the past 15 years can help but remark on how rapidly those places have developed; perhaps they will continue to develop.
Istanbul moves to its own rhythms; despite being in some of the most dangerous geography in the world (look at their neighbors — the Balkans to the northwest, Russia across the Black Sea, Iraq to the southeast, Iran to the east, Syria to the south — egads)... and yet, the Turks are uniquely full of life. Perhaps Istanbul will be special over the coming decades.
America is a large place; different parts of it move to different rhythms. Individual cities flourish and grow. In the United States, I’ve seen Boulder and Austin seem poised on a certain sort of renaissance.
I cannot say definitively where will boom and grow at large scale, but I can say that it’s worth seeking that place out if you’re stagnant. There’s something special at MIT in Cambridge if you’re wanting to push forward engineering, likewise Silicon Valley if you’re a programmer.
Seeking out a place that’s particularly suited to your talents and is booming across the board is a wonderful way to get integration and gains once the hard work of getting there and getting your bona fides in that society is completed.
The opposite are places where people feel isolated and which have entered spirals of defeat. As I passed through old Raton, in New Mexico, I wrote a poem about it —
Raton Station
It’s flat
Flatness rolls for miles around
Mountains in the distance
Flatness approaching the peaks
Scenic clouds dot the sky
Looking perhaps painted on
The place is rather idyllic
Except for, well, you know
Every store is having a sale
Of the stores still open
If you want to lease a building
The local Radio Shack is also town landlord
The people are friendly enough
7,000 of them are scraping by
The waitress loves it here
Despite saving money to move to Omaha
We hitched a ride in the bed of the pickup
To the stretch with restaurants and hotels still open
I asked what had happened here?
The coal mines shut down
***
INTEGRATING INTO AN INDIVIDUAL FACTION OR MOVEMENT
Being part of a society having a broad Golden Age is probably the best of things; widespread benefits, optimism, constant exchanges of ideas, of trade, growth and prosperity reigns.
Going down the spectrum, Mao’s guidelines become prescient — items like “Be courteous,” “Return what you borrow,” “Replace what you break” are, I dare say, more important than ideology for functioning.
Movements or factions live in tumultuous times and places. If you cannot find a Golden Age, you could instead find a meritorious group to be a part of.
Caution is warranted! How many of these could-be-good things turn very bad?
Many, of course.
But tight-knit groups that live during times of strife can mutually support each other, bringing forth resources and understanding. Sometimes the strife brings the people inside even closer together.
General Griffith commented on this —
“The enemy’s rear is the guerrillas’ front; they themselves have no rear. Their logistical problems are solved in a direct and elementary fashion: The enemy is the principal source of weapons, equipment, and ammunition. “Mao once said: “We have a claim on the output of the arsenals of London as well as of Hanyang, and what is more, it is to be delivered to us by the enemy’s own transport corps. This is the sober truth, not a joke.”
“If it is a joke, it is a macabre one as far as American taxpayers are concerned. Defectors to tile Communists from Chiang Kai-shek’s American-equipped divisions were numbered in the tens of thousands. When they surrendered, they turned in mountains of American-made individual arms, jeeps, tanks, guns, bazookas, mortars, radios, and automatic weapons.”
Macabre indeed — for the Americans and Nationalists. But as Griffith reflected in his commentary on Mao, it’s not unique to China or to Communism. The American Revolutionary company under Francis Marian — the “Swamp Fox” — lived in such a way.
Whereas Silicon Valley now is booming loudly, it was once a nascent and still-largely-invisible movement, an early movement; one that was small and where cultivating courtesy and good manners was perhaps the most paramount in finding a place among the young group.
If the paths you’ve chosen place you somewhere where you’re part of a small group, cultivating courtesy and mastering those fundamentals are probably the most important to integrating.
***
INTEGRATION DESPITE LONELY PATHS
But we’re not talking about mere resources. Yes, resources are critical; but so much is possible with so very little resources if one has the will.
What if your path is lonelier?
This is where isolation, I dare say, is most possible and most dangerous.
Endurance and constant trying — despite constant setbacks and failures — is a hallmarked requirement of most large and worthy things.
If there is a society for you, find it! If there is a truly worthy movement, cultivate your courtesy constantly and join it.
What if there isn’t?
This is where loneliness and isolation are most dangerous.
Vincent van Gogh is the first to come to mind. He had his brother, Theo, and not much else across the entire timeframe of his too-short life.
One can’t help but wonder what Van Gogh might have done with another decade or two in this world — as it is, he leaves behind some of the finest things done with a human hand — alas, no?
This is where Boyd’s work is poignant, and with thinking upon it, perhaps we can deduce lessons for ourselves.
How to be integrated and refined physically, mentally, and morally in this world?
A society during a Golden Age — yes, that’s the easiest way. Nearly automatic.
A courteous and well-received member of a group — harder, still possible.
But if you are alone?
There is, of course, friendship — which warrants its own issue; we’ll cover it in great depth during our next Series.
Beyond that, isolation mentally or morally is devastating.
It’s also more common than one would think, since it’s so rarely talked about.
Winston Churchill himself suffered —
“I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand back and, if possible, get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of the ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.”
Churchill, of course, made it to the end of his natural life — and squeezed just about every drop of heroism and artistry out of himself in the process.
Friendship, yes, helped Churchill, even when was ostracized from much of what he cared about in London.
But beyond that, you see a quality in people who can endure on lonely paths — they make the connection in their minds and spirits to similar types of people across all of history.
Churchill famously studied and wrote a biography of his ancestor, the brilliant and incredibly accomplished Duke of Marlborough. Likewise, he kept busts of Admiral Nelson and Emperor Napoleon on his desk.
In his darkest times, he was with them.
Was Sun-Tzu with Mao in his darkest times? Did Carlyle take Dante around with him?
I strongly suspect so.
Can we take Sun-Tzu and Dante with us, in our darkest times?
I don’t see why not.
In this way, then, it might be possible to be physically alone for stretches of time, and yet mentally and morally integrated with the great fabric of history, those that came before us, did the things we wish to do, and suffered the ways we’ll at times suffer.
Toughness — integration produces toughness.
***
TO RECAP AND CONCLUDE
We took a glance at the end of the Roman Republic, and then walked back and forth from 1906 to 1997, with long stopovers in World War II and during the Chinese Civil War, flashing back and forth between America, China, and Europe.
The lesson from Colonel Boyd?
Integration and isolation are the key to success in conflict.
Not war — conflict of any sort.
So often, the battle rages inside of us. How do we keep ourselves together?
Toughness, we want to be tough, endure, and accomplish what we set out to do.
The guidelines to being integrated — and to avoiding isolation — are necessarily broad. I’ve painted what I can. My three big suggestions are as follows,
1. The easiest integration comes when you find a society that you can belong to, during a Golden Age, and gain acceptance in that society.
Integration, optimism, gain, reinforcement, and support become almost automatic in such a place. Search for one if you can.
2. Integration in a sub-group of particular faction, I contend, follows far more excellent courtesy, manners, and good discipline than ideology.
You should of course join groups carefully; if you find one that suits you, then, relentlessly cultivate your courtesy, discipline, and usefulness to become integrated.
3. If you’re on the loneliest of paths, first, do seek good friends and individuals as you can. But then cultivate a broader love of the eternal
; find those that came before you and walked the same paths, cultivate a sense of connection with your profession and the greats that came before you; this is perhaps the hardest way to remain integrated and avoid isolation, but it’s also the one that exists solely in your mind, providing sustenance even when otherwise physically alone.
Integration is paramount – we’ll explore a connection to history a little more next chapter.
***
PS: I couldn’t quite work this quote from Griffith into this chapter, but it was too entertaining to leave out —
“At the present time, much attention is being devoted to the development of “gadgetry,” A good example of this restricted approach to the problem was reported in Newsweek: ‘PENTAGON—A new and fiendishly ingenious anti-guerrilla weapon is being tested by the Navy. It’s a delayed-action liquid explosive, squirted from a flame-thrower-like gun, that seeps into foxholes and bunkers. Seconds later, fed by oxygen from the air, it blows up with terrific force.’
“Apparently we are to assume that guerrillas will conveniently ensconce themselves in readily identifiable “fox-holes and bunkers” awaiting the arrival of half a dozen admirals armed with “flame-thrower-like guns” to march up, squirt, and retire to the nearest officers’ club. To anyone even remotely acquainted with the philosophy and doctrine of revolutionary guerrilla war, this sort of thing is not hilariously funny.”